The Angel Harvest
by Crisis Project
Summary: You are cordially invited: Sam & Dean Winchester. Private auction. Angel wings (fully charged with grace) will be auctioned at midnight. Limited quantities available. No weapons zone; no exceptions. [AU s07e23. Destiel/Wing!kink]
1. Purgatory For Dummies

**Pairing:** Destiel, romance will be gradual so bear with me.

 **Setting:** twist on the season 7 finale. Will commence onwards from there.

 **Note:** So as some of you will know, this fic was originally published on an alternate account. For personal reasons, I have moved the fic here and the other account is now dormant. Updates will be posted here for this fic.

This chapter is just to peg down the foundation. More adventures and sexy times to come!

* * *

 **Act I: Purgatory For Dummies**

 _Dean._

 _Dean, I must act quickly._

He was in reset mode. That soothing blank warmth that only exists in the moments between restful sleep and wakefulness, the kind of sleep that would cocoon him after the last drop of the roiling storm had been wrung from his last nerve. The kind of nirvana that took a week of schmoozing through booze and sex to get.

Static flared; then a thin, tinny whistle flossed between his ears, accompanied by deep, mutant reverberations. They muffled and morphed slowly into speech, and in that minute he realised that he was pinned down in a piercing white light like a bug. Did someone just call him?

"-end of the bloody world and you come up short once again, Puft. Your generation is so easily distracted by explosions and sparkly things. Personally, I'd blame the media if I didn't already own it-"

"He was _just here_. How do I know that you and your minions didn't-"

"Well if I'm lucky, they did. And if I'm still lucky, the levis did and my army of _minions_ are plundering and pillaging as we speak, so either way, your loss. And very soon, my gain."

He knew those voices.

He managed to blink once before the agony boiled into his skull and kneaded his brain like the pasty dough it felt like. Burning blood and acrid lightning pulsed and blazed its way through the network of neurons, flaying his happy place. The blank bliss soured into sensations: burned retinas, sour bile, stiff joints, frying nerves, the stench of acid, and that _fucking whistling -_

His reflex system bypassed his blazing neurons. Gasping with new-found lungs, he surged to a sitting position and blinked, disoriented. Blindness gave way to shapes and colours - white walls, a grey shelving unit, black ink splatters _everywhere_ , painting the white tiles like a Pollock. He was sitting, surrounded by a halo of it.

Immediate danger check: safe. Next check: "Sam?" he instinctively croaked.

There was a pause, then heavy footsteps echoing, and he could actually feel his gargantuan brother galloping towards him through vibrations in the tiles. A familiar knot loosened behind his sternum: _Sammy. Sammy's okay_.

His brother's high-alert expression swung into view, his signature chick-hair swinging behind him. " _Dean!_ You- you're alive! You're still here!"

"Not so sure if I'm happy about it," Dean muttered, grasping Sam's offered hand and hauling himself up creakily. The disorientation and trying to squint with his ears to make out words through the opaque air were making it hard to string two thoughts together. _What the fuck happened_?

"And here I was, hoping you'd gone _boom_ with Dick and Cas," drawled a hazy black figure. Crowley swam into focus, his black coat drawing the eye and his heavy voice easily dominating the sterile laboratory room. His tone was effortlessly wry and dry, but his dark eyes were hard and bright, crinkled at the corners with a barely-hidden grin.

 _Cas_.

Dean whipped around, ignoring the wave of nausea as he focused on the biggest splatter of ectoplasm. Ground zero was suspiciously absent of a Dick and a broken angel. Dean's memory snapped back into place – _The Plan_ – Cas bluffed, took the throw, Dean distracted, Cas yanked Dick's head back, and Dean boned him through the throat. Then Dick had started pulsating energy, vibrating, faster and faster while Dean had just watched like a friggin' _idiot_ until Dick had exploded – which had knocked his lights out.

And there Crowley was, a smug grin scrawled across his face. "Where are they?" Dean snapped, balling his fists. Mentally he was taking inventory of his body: everything seemed to work, the throbbing pain was fading, the whistling was gone, his stomach was double-dutching but he could tough that out, some throbbing but that only meant bruises. Instinctively he knew that he had to keep Crowley talking - he and Sam were vulnerable, but Ruby's knife should still be tucked into his belt; half-formed emergency strategies started clocking in-

"That bone has a bit of a kick," Crowley replied gently, a smirk tucked into a whiskered corner of his thin lips. "God's weapons often do. Should've put a warning on the box."

"This is exactly what you wanted," Sam realized aloud, accusatory as he glowered down at the smaller man. "Dick out of the way, and revenge on Cas."

Dean froze, muscles locking down.

Crowley smiled and innocently shrugged, brushing Sam off as he turned to look at Dean. "Cut off the head, and the body will flounder, after all. If you had just one king since before the first sunrise you'd be in a kerfuffle too."

"And _Cas_?" Dean snarled.

The shorter man cocked his head and raised a derisive brow. "If he's lucky, he's ceased to exist. But I'm guessing the signature Winchester charm has rubbed off on him, and he's wandering around Purgatory for you as we speak."

The tinny whistling warped into a static buzzing in Dean's ears. "For me?" he echoed dumbly.

"Dean," Sam murmured softly, shooting him an apologetic look from the side. "I saw him push you out of the way just as Dick exploded."

Time splintered as fragments of memories raced through Dean's numb mind, and his eyes vacantly swung to the ooze-free spot he'd woken up in, picturing that flapping trench coat as his own words echoing mutely in his head.

" _You've been chosen. And it sucks, believe me. There's no use asking 'why me?' cuz the angels – they don't care. I think they just don't have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it breaks them apart."_

Hester, leader of the surviving members of the garrison snarling at him through a contorted mask of betrayal: _"The very_ touch _of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell he was_ lost! _"_

That hesitant, small and warm smile tugging at Cas's lips when the brothers had looked to him for help - just like in the old days. _"Well, you know me. I'm always happy to bleed for the Winchesters."_

He'd been wrong about him.

"Consider Cas's vacation in Purgatory on me. I did owe him one," Crowley gloated, the manic gleam in his eyes glimmering. "And without a master plan, the levis are just another monster. Hard to stomp, sure. But then, you love a challenge. _Your_ job is to keep them from organizing."

"Not until-"

" _Bring him back_."

Sam and Crowley eyed Dean as the muscles in his jaw flexed, recognizing the building pressure in the hunter. He could hear all the _shoulda-coulda-woulda_ s in his head building up a whirling storm; he had to keep a lid on it. "Bring him back _now_ , you son of a bitch," Dean bit out.

Crowley huffed a laugh. "Did you actually forget the consequences already? I thought Cas had demonstrated well enough that opening the door to Monster Land isn't the smartest idea." The smile dropped from his lips as he turned a burning glare at Dean, all façade of humour vanished. "I'm sure this will zip in one ear and out the other, being a Winchester and all, but do _._ Not _._ Open. _That door_. No more sacrificing, deals, or _trading places_ , at least not for your feathered boy toy. If, by some miracle, a human like you is able to open the portal, you'd be pulped by the hordes of monsters spewing out from the bowels of Purgatory into this reality, and it'll be the end of the world. _For sure_. Because a human like you doesn't have the juice to stay alive against the monsters, keep them at bay, and close the portal from either side."

Hope and wild plans tumbled through Dean's head as he stubbornly replied, "but demons – or Death –"

"No demon has _ever_ willingly crossed into Purgatory _since the birth of the idea of time_ ," Crowley snapped, "reapers and even Death himself don't go closer to that hole than to kick the freaks into it. That is where their kind go to prey upon each other for the rest of eternity without ever dying, ergo no need for Death to get his shoes dirty."

It was possible then to see a shift behind Crowley's eyes, to almost palpably feel the hulking, malicious Demon with a capital _D_ talking through the short British puppet. His black coat seemed to flicker at the edges, doubling the idea that the demon was looming just behind a thin slice of Old English ham.

And it was the sincerity from the King of Hell and liars that convinced him.

Crowley carefully watched Dean then rocked back from them, shrugging into a more casually human stance again. "I see we understand each other. Now, that's enough _Purgatory For Dummies_. You have, oh," he rolled back his suit sleeve to squint at his naked wrist, "five minutes to get out of here before I set this candy factory on fire."

He was gone with a snap of his fingers.

"Dean, let's go," Sam urged, heading to the door.

Dean was already following him when he paused, "where's the – uh – advanced kid – Kevin?"

Sam's shoulders tensed and he did that weird jut with his jaw in the way Dean knew meant that he was internalizing blame. "I don't know," he admitted, "I shielded him from Dick. I looked to see what had happened, but when I turned around again, he was gone."

They took a right into an emergency stairwell, their hurried footsteps echoing back at them. "So Crowley has him."

"He said he didn't yet," Sam replied bitterly between huffs, "but his minions probably got him already."

Dean gritted his teeth from interrogating Sam further, remembering the conversation he'd woken up to. They'd been talking about Kevin being taken by Crowley's demons, not about Dean. _Mission Impossible: Kevin Tran_ had failed. Dean had promised - and he had also failed. He kept an eye on his brother, vowing to get the screechy prophet back if only for Sam to redeem himself.

He walled everything up to deal with later as they raced into a corridor, eyes darting around for enemies. They'd saved the world from the end, again. The faces of Kevin, Meg, Bobby, and Cas flashed through his mind as they dodged a cluster of leviathans fighting for their lives against demons, and he shoved the same ol' bittersweet blend of roiling guilt and relief down to concentrate on guarding their backs as they fled down the bubblegum-and-blood-scented hall.

* * *

 **Note:** As any of you who write on know, reviews are the batteries to our bunnies. Gas to our Chevys. Dean to our Cas. YOU ARE MY SUN-SHIIIIIIINE, MY ONLY SUN-SHIIIINE, SOMETHING LONE-LYYYY, WHEN SKIES ARE PAAAAALE-*

*Please note that author will skip screeching at you at 3am if you review, guaranteed.


	2. SOS

**Note:** I've remembered how ridiculously easy I am to please on this site. One little review, favourite, or follower and I'm bouncing around in my chair, flailing my arms in ecstasy. REVIEWS ARE MY DRUGS. PLEASE DONATE TO A FELLOW FANFIC AUTHOR NEAR YOU.*

* _Please do not attempt to procure or donate illegal substances to fangirls. They may go rabid. Reviews only! Please approach cautiously._

* * *

 **Act II: SOS**

"Look, as far as I know angels don't actually have chicken wings," Dean said tiredly to the crisp blue sky. He wiped his greasy hands on a rag and took another swig of Johnnie Walker, feeling the alcohol buzz through his veins and warm him in the nippy November weather. He needed to spike his blood alcohol concentration to have this conversation. "If they're there, they're invisible and untouchable. I've only seen the shadows of their wings, or burnt outlines on the ground when they get ganked and deep fried."

There was a nasal hum, and Dean could almost picture the skinny hunter roll his sleepy Pinocchio eyes over his bulbous nose. "I dunno, my cousin was pretty sure the auction was for angel _wings_ -"

Metal grated and screeched. Dean whipped around to see Sam noisily slide out from between two creaking stacks of pancake-d cars, loaded with paper bags and a look on his face as if he were approaching an easily-startled deer, and that annoyingly perpetual _are-you-okay-let's-emote!_ gleam in his soulful hazel eyes.

Dean rolled his own and leaned to the side, making sure that his overly-concerned brother saw the open flip phone resting on the scratched trunk of the Impala.

Sam immediately relaxed and quirked an eyebrow as he handed Dean a takeout bag.

 _Garth_ , Dean mouthed. His hulking brother's delicate eyebrows raised and the corner of his lips twisted into a slight grimace. Dean shrugged in reply, tuning back into the monologue Garth was spouting.

"'Kay, so angels don't have wings," Garth affirmed, his voice tinny from the speakers cranked on high. "Then what _do_ they look like? I've never seen one."

"Hey Garth. They look like you and me," Sam answered, rustling through his paper bags. "They're kinda like demons in the sense that when they want to walk the earth, they need a human vessel."

"But they have the manners to ask 'please, Mommy may I?' before they take the wheel, Rambo-Jesus-style," Dean said sarcastically before biting into the greasy diner burger. "Look man," he mumbled around a near-orgasmic mouthful of bacon and mayonnaise, "this case is a bust. Far be it from me to stop your cousin from hunting the world's most heavenly garlic wings, but they won't be available at a bar near you."

"…Do you think I can ask your or Sam's angel friend for more info?" Garth hesitantly asked, "not that I don't believe you, it's just that Darcy seemed pretty sure about this case."

Dean determinedly kept chewing even as Sam shot a concerned look his way over his organic rabbit food, keeping his gaze trained on glittering piles of wreckage lining the path. He kept chewing, although now it was like each morsel had caused him great offense, and he was taking pleasure in slowly masticating them to pulp, complete with squeaky cries of mercy from his jaws.

Sam rose to the plate, recognizing his brother's signature Denial-and-Repression look. "He's not with us anymore, Garth," he answered, forcefully casual. Despite himself, Dean's sense of humour kicked in when he noticed how comical his Sasquatch-sized brother looked, folding in half to reassure a tiny silver cell phone on the beat up car.

"Oh. Sorry man," the phone apologized, "uh, thanks for the info. I didn't know anyone else who knew an angel personally."

"No problem," Sam said in that convincing, soothing tone. Boy could therapy his way into every angsty chick's pants if he'd had a mind to use his superpower for himself one day. "Good luck with the hunts."

Dean knocked back the burger with more whiskey as Sam hung up the phone. "Angel wings?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. Maybe it's just angels," Dean reflected absently as he scrounged in the bag for a fry. "They're an endangered species now, aren't they?" He chomped on a crispy end of starchy goodness before exclaiming, "dude, _Victoria Secret Angels auction_!"

A few soppy, wet green chunks spewed out from Sam's mouth as he snorted. "Dude. Porn. Reality. There's a _difference_ -"

"Yeah, well, don't tell me you'd rather bust out Gabriel than a posse of Heidi Klums-"

"It's not really a question of _preference_ -"

They laughed a bit, and quietly finished their meal. The sun dipped into the dusty fields beyond the scrap yard, throwing shadows from the blazing hedges of tortured metal, nostalgically reminding the brothers of how this place had been their personal labyrinth when they were younger. Dean mentally drew constellations from his favourite landmarks in the yard visible from the Impala, enjoying the subtle glow of the laugh and the whiskey, while determinedly ignoring the curdling soup of guilt gnawing at his gut since their escape from Sucro Corp twenty hours ago. There was the Fridge O'Death, where he'd found a decomposing hand in when he was eleven, the slight lump across the clearing marking a body, the bent car hood they'd scribbled on-

"Y'need anything?" Sam asked surveying his brother's handiwork on the Impala. It'd come a long way - it just needed the wheels back on and a new paintjob now. "I'm gonna head back to work."

"How's the e-library coming, O nerdy brother of mine?" Dean asked casually as he tidied up the garbage from his baby. The interior still smelled a bit like brake fluid, but at least everything looks alright.

Sam held up a rectangular package almost in exasperation, one end open to reveal a stack of papers inside. "I remembered Bobby squirreling this copy away at the diner. Got that and dinner with one stone," Sam slipped out a paper and frowned down at it. "Don't know how much use it's going to be though. Most of the printed angel lore is hokum." He looked at his overly-casual brother calculatingly, "I'm starting to think we should start writing down the things we know, sorta like Samuel Colt, y'know?"

"Yeah, too bad we can't actually verify the angel stuff," Dean muttered, sitting outwards from the passenger seat and knocking back a swig of Johnny. "All of the angels we've ever known are officially dead. Not shot-back-to-heaven-dead, more like an atheist's-game-over-dead." He clamped down, glaring back at the sun. "I never bothered to ask Cas when he was here." The words were small and easy to slip out while he burned the sun into his eyes.

"Hey, neither did I," Sam said, holding out a hand as if to try and break up the fight between Dean and Dean's Guilt once more. "There was always something going on, and Cas was crazy for the last couple months because of me. He was our _friend_ -"

"Yeah, apparently that's what friends do," Dean interrupted bitterly. "They take an exploding monster to the face and get dragged into Eternal Freakshow Hell for you. Alone – with _Dick fucking Roman_. And y'know what? I never bothered to ask him how his fucking day went. What the hell an angel even does during the day, or, or if they all have fucking light-up fairy wings they get hunted and killed for-"

A shrill ding interrupted him and Dean seized the chance to emotionally clench up, cramming the torrent back down as he flipped open the phone, scanning the tiny, blue-tinged LED screen.

Sam bit his lip, seeing a flash of Cas in his thin white loony-bin uniform, draped in his overly large trench coat, bewildered and barefoot in Purgatory (which he imagined to be somewhat like Hell, but with more variety). Sure, Cas had a record for being resurrected, but it's not like he was dead when he fell into Purgatory – and since it was a realm unto itself, would it prevent Cas from returning to Heaven if he were killed in there? Or would he cease to exist? His throat tightened as he remembered Crowley's words, and wondered if Cas would respawn like in a videogame, forever being hunted by monsters.

The wind ruffled his hair and slipped chilly fingers down the back of his jacket, snapping him back to the dimming scrap metal landscape. He glanced at his brother, realizing that he hadn't moved a bit, still staring at the phone in his hand. "Dean?"

Mutely, Dean handed over his open phone. Sam seized it, recognizing the hints of alarm in his older brother and quickly scanned the screen.

It was a text message.

Sender: 1(617)xxx-xxxx ext. xxxx

Subject: -

Message:

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS

CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS CASTIEL SOS


	3. Stumped

**Note:** So the beginning is taking much longer than I'd anticipated. Yes, I know, you're all just tired of waiting for the second main star of the show to make his grand appearance. But you DO know that Cas's signature just-rolled-out-of-bed look takes hours to perfect, right? Or just a romp with Dean behind the scenes – and they're not minute men. He'll be here soon! Just… a little scarce in this chapter.

* * *

 **Act III: Stumped**

"Look, I just need a tiny detail about 'Patient X'," a haggard-looking woman begged, "my deadline's in three hours, and my boss is _on my ass_ about this guy. Who is he? Just how is he mutated? Is it contagious? Is it true about the wings-"

"The patient doesn't have wings," the nurse behind the counter corrected, "I can only tell you already-published information: Doe was accepted into our hospital yesterday at 6:03pm, bleeding severely from two points on the back. We can't release confidential patient information-"

"But there have been reports by witnesses that the guy appeared out of thin air, bleeding and emitting light," a bespectacled man interrupted from behind the woman, his visitor's tag labeling him another journalist. "If he's just another Doe shot off the streets there wouldn't be so many guards in this hospital-"

"-unless he's worth hiding. Tell me, is he more _X-Men_ or _Angel_ -"

Two tall nurses in scrubs and surgical masks slipped by the nurse station, keeping their eyes on their coffee and watches, gliding by the harassed nightshift nurses and desperate journalists. They walked by the scrutiny of a few guards, all of whom looking equally as delighted to be stuck on the graveyard shift at 3am on a Friday morning.

"Well, they're not too far off the mark," the shorter nurse muttered. "But it's kinda like naming a dog 'Cat', or a cow 'Horse'. Why would you name a vampire 'Angel'?"

Sam rolled his hazel eyes over his blue cotton mask, ignored his brother's comment and doggedly continued his reinforcement. "Look, I know he's turned up in a hospital before, but what are the chances that it'll happen again? We can't count on God bouncing Cas back every time he dies like some cosmic yoyo-"

" _I know_ ," Dean griped, scanning the numbers on the doors they passed in the brightly-lit, sterile hall. "But if he's in here, I'm not walking out without him."

"And I'm not telling you to," Sam said agreeably, slowing down as they neared their number, "I'm just telling you not to get your hopes up. Winchester curse, remember?"

"Well aren't you a bedpan of sunshine," Dean muttered as he swung open the door to room 347. He nodded to the nurse dressed identically to them zoning out in the seat by the window. "Hey, you're on break," he said in a casual tone, holding the coffee aloft in one hand, "we're covering for you."

The nurse nodded gratefully, grabbed the coffee, and was about to slouch past them when Sam spoke what Dean had been wondering: "hey, uh, what's with the-?"

The nurse's eyes darted back into the room, at the window and at the white tiles beneath their feet in the doorway. "Oh, yeah. Doe wouldn't let us help until those symbols were down. Second she was done with the tape and salt she KO'd. Probably new-age Wiccan or something," he said dismissively, saying the last bit over his shoulder as he walked down the hall towards the nurse's station.

She?

A look passed between Dean and Sam. Then they stepped over the devil's trap sketched in masking tape on the gleaming floor, locking the door behind them.

The dim hospital room was standard, with white tiles, carefully neutral walls, a floor lamp, and a single curtained-off bed. Judging by the shadow cast on the curtains, the patient seemed to be sound asleep with their hands curiously propped up in the air. Dean pulled off his mask and swiftly approached, while Sam followed cautiously, drawing the gun stuck in his waistband. A quiet crunch beneath their feet announced the ring of salt poured around the hospital bed.

Sam blinked and drew his pistol, sure he'd seen a flicker behind the curtains. He lay the nose of the gun by the curtain, aiming for the approximate location of the patient's head. He knew his brother was hopeful – but when were they ever lucky? He watched Dean steel himself and slowly draw the powder blue fabric aside.

"Cas…?"

For a second, Dean saw a shadowy, rumpled nest of thin cotton on the gurney topped with dark hair. A patch of pale skin was exposed in the center of the nest, bared between arms set in casts bent at the elbow, sticking up from the sheets. He felt the tight knots in his neck start to loosen, the heady clouds of elation and relief starting to rush. Flesh and bones heal, whereas being banished eternally in Purgatory was terminal. But something was off – the arms were far too short, and placed far too high on the body; the casts were rumpled, wrapped crudely – it looked almost as if they were _fuzzy_ , with the tips of the casts matted with dark, coagulated blood –

Then the details suddenly pieced together in a horrifying moment, just as he heard Sam gasp behind him. Dean watched in almost detached shock as a bright drop of scarlet blood ran down from a hacked stump, dribbling a scarlet thread through the soft downy feathers by the bone, until it glided down a long, white wing feather and stained the pale shoulder blade below.

The next moment was a blur of movement and his pulse roaring in his ears as he leapt to the head of the gurney on his knees, shouting, "Cas! Cas?" _You have to be okay, you have to tell me that those raw skewers speared in your back are not your holy flappers – you've never even had wings –!_ He was distantly aware of shaking Cas's shoulder as Sam said something in the background, watching the short, dark hair flop in his friend's closed eyes –

They suddenly snapped open, and Dean felt the shoulder he was grasping flex an instant before his head was snapped back by a small, strong hand. Finger nails dug into his scalp and temples. "Castiel? No - _who are you?_ "

"Let him go," Sam said somewhere to Dean's side, all business. The order was punctuated with the metallic cocking of his gun.

"Answer me!" The hand holding his skull started to tremble, then glow with dim flickers of blue-white light.

 _Shit. This is gonna go nuclear_. "Hold on!" Dean shouted, holding up a hand to both of them blindly. "He's gone! But we got his SOS, and the number traced to this room in this hospital."

There was a beat of silence.

"Show me."

Dean cautiously reached a hand into his pocket and handed his phone over to the abnormally-strong patient. It gave him enough time to sort out both the bitter and sweet realisation that this wasn't his best friend; that Dean hadn't found him, but also had not found him with the raw, sawn remains of what had to be the remnants of once-whole wings.

The image of Cas - not the all-powerful and solidly-reassuring soldier of the lord, but the husk of hubris with the openly vulnerable face - flitted through his mind. Dean gritted and forced himself back to the present, concentrating on the smoking gun holding his highly-combustible melon.

"What are your names?" The tone belied mercy, but the grip tightened on Dean's head like a vice.

"Hey, I'm Dean Winchester. That's my brother, Sam. And as far as handshakes go, this is just awesome," Dean said dryly.

A note of suspicion crept into the high-pitched voice. "Prove it. Show me the scars you bear from when my brother pulled you from Perdition – or I will smite you with the last of my grace, _hunters_." The title was spat out, acidic.

Dean made note of the pitch, then rolled up the sleeves of his scrubs to the tops of his shoulders, baring the handprint-shaped scars. No matter how many times he was brought back to life or healed, the handprints had always remained wrapped around his shoulders.

Seconds stretched. He could hear each of their breaths, how Sam was uneasily shifting his weight. Then a long, drawn-out sigh punctuated the silence. " _Fuck_."

"Why is that the usual reaction we get now?" Dean muttered to Sam, and he could see Sam twitching his foot like he wanted to reach over and kick him.

The grip slackened and Dean pulled away, lurching to his feet while Sam tugged the floor lamp into the opening in the curtains, turning the salt-lined area around the gurney into a makeshift interrogation room of sorts. A slender woman in her mid-twenties glared up at them as she sat up from lying on her belly, the hospital gown slit open to allow the mutations on her back to stick out comfortably. The light glistened off the beads of sweat trailing from her short, dark hair as pain twisted her pale face. Her eyes flickered between grey and electric blue in time with the blue-white sparks lancing in tiny lightning bolts from the stumps of her useless wings. She looked a bit like a wounded bird, hostile about being grounded.

"I call for Castiel, and his apes show up," she muttered bitterly, "typical."

Dean shrugged it off. They'd been called worse. "So that SOS was yours."

The angel shuddered, and crossed her arms on the gurney, looking more like a sick girl trying to keep her act together than an almighty soldier of the Lord. "I sent it to Castiel. It found you instead, thanks to his grace in your scars; probably while you were physically touching your phone," she replied flatly.

"What happened to you?" Sam asked sympathetically, completely buying into the helpless-bird act, "how did-"

A disorienting _POP_ and a flash of light blinded them. Dean flung up his fists defensively as he blinked the green-purple afterimage away in the sudden darkness. The lamp bulb stuttered sparks from its blown head, strobe-lighting the gurney; the machines lining the headboard were going haywire. But he couldn't focus on anything but the breath-taking light show in front of him. Threads of burning blue-white light threaded erratically from the angel's stumps, as if she were the center of an 80's plasma globe. The air crackled as the lazy lightning arced around the curtains, burning smoking trails through the fabric. Her eyes were alien, flickering blue beacons, focusing between him and his brother.

"As you can see, I don't have much time left in this vessel," the angel said wryly above the noise of the machines. Anything they were going to say was cut off by a harsh, strangulated laugh tapering off into laboured panting. Her eyes flared through the tips of her sweat-drenched hair, boring into them as she confessed, "I'm leaking out of it."

"You're _leak_ -?"

"-If you're still on Castiel's side, you _have_ to find him," she interrupted, a note of pleading in her command. "Tell him to warn whoever is left that we are being hunted and slaughtered. Not just by abominations anymore – _humans_."

Sam cast a worried glance at the closed hospital door and tucked his gun back in his waistband under his scrubs. "All the angels we've met didn't have wings, at least not when they were in their vessels," he said as he looked at what remained of hers curiously, bordering on accusation, "so if you _are_ an angel, what happened to you?"

A pulse of light flared, and they both shielded their faces from it. Iron vices squeezed Dean's wrists as she seized him. Tiny white lines of fires raked over the exposed skin of their arms, and the faint whiff of singed meat wafted in the air.

"They _burned_ me into this vessel," she snarled, eyes now flaring white as grace pulsed like a Tesla coil from her back, "then they trapped my grace in these wings and –"

A series of loud thumps interrupted her from the door. "Open up! We've got the crash cart!"

The machines continued to shriek, flashing red. He couldn't shake the grip, couldn't even freakin' look away - her eyes were as bright as the winter morning sun - she didn't seem to be paying attention to anything anymore, but to implore him almost desperately, " _find him_. _Please_. He was a god once – he can do _something_ –"

Cas's fate was on the tip of Dean's tongue when the light in the angel's burning eyes stuttered, then faded to flat, matte grey. He somehow caught her as she suddenly slackened over the side of the gurney, feeble sparks of white-blue electricity twisting from the hacked stumps on her back.

There was a rustle of movement, then dim light illuminated the gurney from the window. Sam had withdrawn the curtains.

She lay curled on her side, suddenly small. Her eyes were closed, face eerily slack and vacant in unconsciousness.

"Is she-?" Sam asked.

Dean felt for her pulse on her throat. "Still alive."

"Dean, what do we do? We can't just leave her-"

"And how the hell are we supposed to get her past the army of doctors outside the door?"

"Fine. We'll come back-"

They shut up as the wings of the KO'd angel seemed to glow the customary blue-white of grace for a moment. Then, quickly, one by one the feathers fizzled out, until nothing was left but a smooth expanse of creamy skin over her unmarred shoulder blades.

The host stirred, blinking open sleepy eyes, casting a confused look around her head at the noisily excited machines, then focusing on Dean. "Who are-?"

The door slammed open, and a harassed medical team wheeled their equipment in as another nurse flicked on the lights. Dean and Sam moved aside for them, taking the opportunity to head for the door as the doctors focused on the bewildered girl tangled in the sweaty sheets. Dean chanced one last glance behind him before they ducked out the door, holding her eyes with his enough to register their colour.

They were brown.

* * *

Streetlights flashed by, then flicked off as the dawn rose quietly beyond the windows the Impala, heralded by birds as they drove further into farmlands. The hospital and their ditched scrubs were a couple hours of driving behind them, the events of their long day rendering them quiet and pensive for much of it. Sam was slumped against the passenger window, his shaggy hair curtaining his eyes and his mouth set in that line that meant that he was pretending to sleep but was really mulling over the day. Dean was more or less making himself enjoy the simple pleasure of driving from point A to point B – no complications, no monsters, no drama…

"We should help them," Sam muttered, breath fogging the window.

"No. What we _should_ do is take a break. The world needs to cut us some freaking slack," Dean griped, glaring over the steering wheel at the violently rural landscape whipping past. "We ganked Dick - what – _two days_ ago. Forty-eight hours. I need a vacation, goddamnit."

"But you remember what Cas said," Sam continued, straightening up in his seat, "that heaven was empty of angels, and if there were any still alive then they were in hiding. She's gotta be one of the remaining survivors after the leviathans tried to commit genocide. And now they're being hunted-"

"Yeah, I don't buy that. Why would hunters want an angel's wings?" Dean said dismissively. "It's probably another monster mash. They can duke it out, they can kill each other off."

"That's the thing, we don't have enough information," Sam persisted, "if there _are_ humans out there who can force an angel into a vessel and trap their grace in physical wings, then _hack them off_ , we need to find out why and how they're doing it. You know we're gonna end up on this case sooner or later anyway."

Dean continued to focus solely on the white lines zipping by on the black asphalt of the highway, remembering the angel's desperation. It occurred to him that they had never learned her name.

Sam looked out the windshield, avoiding Dean's eyes as he said quietly, "I think we owe it to Cas."

The strumming of a guitar riff rang from Dean's pocket, saving him from feeling like he should both agree with and condemn the statement. There was acceptance in his brother's tone, too loud in the purring car. Sam was flying through the five stages of acceptance with his hippy Zen when Cas hadn't even sacrificed himself two days ago-

Dean cut that train of thought and grabbed the phone, driving one-handed as he put it to his ear. "Hel-?"

" _SAM?! DEAN_ -"

"Whoa, crank down the volume!" Dean shouted into the receiver as he pulled the car over on to the gravelly shoulder. He switched the call to speaker as Sam shot him an inquiring look. "Who the hell is this?"

"It's Chuck and your friend just ditched this screaming kid here and _what the fuck_ is going on?!"

Between Chuck's yells there did seem to be more screams and shouts going on in the background, although it was hard to tell with the poor quality of the cheap phone's microphone. Sam's eyebrows were hiking up to his hairline and Dean could feel his own taking the same express as they both focused on the phone clenched in his hand.

"Wait, it looks like he wants to – _ouch_ -"

"DEAN? SAM?"

They shared a confused look at the new speaker on the phone, who had seemingly snatched it out of Chuck's hand. But the bursts of hyperventilation on the speaker keyed Dean's memory. "… _Kevin_?"

"Oh my God, it's you! I thought he was going to keep me there-"

"Okay, just slow down Kevin, and _breathe_." Dean instructed, unable to stop the beginnings of an incredulous smile from tugging his lips, mirroring Sam's exuberant fist-pump in the car. "Where are you right now? Are you safe?"

"I – I don't know, that crazy angel just dropped me off at this guy's house-"

"Crazy ang- you mean Cas? Castiel?" Sam interrupted, frozen with his fist in the air. "He's _alive_?"

" _Yes_ , but-"

"Wait, everyone just _hold on_ for a second," Dean ordered. "Kevin, switch the phone on to speaker. Don't worry about Chuck, he's harmless. ("Hey!") Now, tell us what happened from the beginning. What happened to you at SucroCorp?"

Kevin seemed to take a breath and slowed down his words, "I think just after that leviathan exploded at SucroCorp, Castiel grabbed me and teleported us or something to this gold room. Then he went off somewhere after locking me inside, and he didn't come back until five minutes ago, saying that he'd be taking me back to Earth but someplace safe. And he told me to tell you guys not to call him unless it's an emergency, and even then to think twice."

Stunned silence reigned after Kevin delivered the last of his instructions on both sides of the call. The only sound was the thrum of the Impala's engine. Sam seemed to be working through stages of disbelief, while Dean kind of froze, unwilling to examine the shit storm of emotions flying around inside his mind. Flashes of Dick Roman, Bobby, the flightless angel's face, and Cas's own flew, distorted as if in funhouse mirrors, through his mind, sweeping tides of confused emotions together into a snarled mess.

He grasped on the most familiar: pissed-off.

" _ **Fuck**_ _that, we're calling_."


	4. Two Prophets, One Angel

**Note:** IT'S ALIIIIIIIIIVE. Wow. I'm raising this fic from the dead, bitches. This story hasn't left me alone for years and I'm gonna have to write it out in order for it to leave me alone. Destiel OTP for life!

* * *

 **Act IV: Two Prophets, One Angel**

"No answer," Sam said as he stowed away the cell phone. "Guy just won't pick up."

"Great," Dean griped as he steered the Impala. "Perfect. I love it when missing guys stay AWOL."

Sam peered through the windshield, ignoring Dean's raging silence. They were rolling into Kripke's Hollow, the market-low-end suburbs that Chuck lived in. The kind filled with threadbare retirees and dingy Fords. He wondered how many pervy ghosts and spectral meth addicts haunted the burnt remnants of their basement labs next to rickety playgrounds. They were a pain to exorcise since they seemed to retain their alternating rabid and empty moods even in the afterlife, but he and Dean had figured out that by promising them meth (ie. crushed rock candy) the spirits became docile enough to exorcise.

As they neared Chuck's address, the houses became more ramshackle. They could hear faint, erratic laughter once Dean had pulled up at the right house number on the street and killed the engine.

"Dean, Sam! Wherefore art my Winchesters?" A scarecrow cried, leaning drunkenly out a second floor window. The small figure's wild thatch of curly hair was recognizable against the overcast sky, as was the ratty bathrobe.

"Is that - is that Chuck?" Sam wondered aloud as they got out of the car.

"Yeah... and I think he started happy hour early." Dean stepped onto the scraggly lawn and just barely dodged a surprisingly-accurate splash of liquid arcing down from the window.

"C'mere! Lemme give you a shower!" Chuck cried, awkwardly waving a bottle in each hand.

A snort of laughter squeaked out from behind Chuck and someone else shouted, "'s good for you! Got olive - Palmolive - innit."

Dean and Sam exchanged looks.

"Screw all the teenyboppers," Dean said, glaring at the laughing prophet leaning out precariously from the ledge, "normal is great. Normal is underappreciated and we don't have any normal friends because they all freaking die."

"They're probably just checking to see if we're leviathans," Sam consoled.

"I am _not_ gonna be golden showered by a couple of squirrely prophets," Dean proclaimed. "Chuck! Oh, Chuck, let down that soap - or I will climb up there and kick your ass!"

"No. No. No, no, no, _no_." Chuck punctuated every syllable with a spurt of foamy bubbles that plopped on to the brown grass a few feet away from Dean's shoes. "This is the _last bottle_ of soap. It's _mine_. I'm not lettin' you levis take it, cuz I got nothin' else to test your levi-herpes with. Besides, it's m'last bottle. So _c'mere_."

"Chuck, just open the door! We're not leviathans, and we're not - _infected_ with anything!" Sam yelled back.

"No can do," Chuck announced. He raised the bottle of dish detergent to his lips, paused uncertainly, then took a swig from the beer bottle in his other hand. "Kid saw you, or your levi-dopplegangers chomp on Castiel, so we need to be _absofuckingtively_ sure you don't got 'em chompers in you. Not like that. I think."

* * *

"So... one of you can use the shower - don't mind the drain, I called the plumber a month ago - and if anyone's desperate, there's a hose in the backyard," Chuck offered sheepishly, opening the front door wider with a nervous chuckle. He shrank back as Dean and Sam shoved past him roughly into the dim foyer. Between the crazy running around he did to lock the Winchesters out of the house and the adrenaline from facing their wrath through a broken window, the prophet had partially sobered up pretty quick.

"That's mine. And so's that," Dean said, plucking the bottles of dish detergent and beer from Chuck's clutches. He promptly started finishing the beer after taking a cursory check of the label.

" _What'reyoudoingthey'regonnakillus_!" hissed a voice from the dirty laundry pile partially obscured by the sofa multitasking as a book shelf and coat rack.

Sam marched into the dim, shabby living room and hauled a swaying, shrimpy kid to his feet from behind the couch. Kevin Tran yelped and almost squirmed out of his grasp before Sam managed to sit him down on the book-strewn cushions with a firm hold on his wrist. With the other hand, he pulled a can of Red Bull from his coat pocket and pressed it into Kevin's hands.

"Kevin, I think Chuck made it really clear that Dean and I are _not_ leviathans. Look, I still have soap on my hands. And my hair. And on my face. Point is, we're not leviathans."

Kevin contemplated the energy drink, the glassy look in his eyes starting to fade. "Y'know, Red Bull was linked to cardiovascular emergencies? Like, some guy had that thing... postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome... after drinking over the limit," he said, seemingly oblivious to the door creaking open and Sam sidling in, followed closely by Chuck. "I was living off this when I was studying for... but that doesn't matter. Doesn't matter if I have a heart attack, either, I guess... Just like it doesn't matter that I drank and I'm still a minor since my life is ruined." He ended his ramble by cracking open and throwing back its contents.

"Oops," Chuck muttered from the door. He'd managed to pull on pants and wrap his bathrobe tighter around himself so that his chest wasn't bare anymore. "I just thought... y'know, Asians look young for their age, so I thought he might be legal and he was screaming - just thought he could do with some calming down, y'know?"

"Where's Cas?" Dean interrupted, ignoring Chuck completely and focusing on the sad university hopeful hunched on the bed. He ignored the kid's downcast and slightly crumpled expression - he could feel his patience being chewed down to the bone. "Kevin, you said he took you guys to some room? And that he left you there until he flew you here - so how do the leviathans factor in?"

"Start at the beginning," counselled Sam.

Kevin bit the inside of his cheek, then peered up at them from beneath his shaggy black hair. "They looked just like you," he said, staring wonderingly from Dean to Sam, "it's why I didn't freak out when they grabbed me when the angel warped us from Sucro Corp. And it was dark in that warehouse. That's where Castiel took us right after the 'splosion. But as soon as he saw you guys, he just started _wailing_ on you - well, them - and I didn't know what the hell I should do. He - Castiel - pushed... actually, he _threw_ me into the wall of a shipping container." He grimaced a bit and continued, "he told me to get in there - the container - and then your _faces_ just became these _huge mouths_ -"

"Filled with razor sharp teeth," Dean filled in, grimacing at the picture in his head of rolling-marbles Cas, fighting alone against two leviathans barehanded and only in his trench coat and hospital scrubs. Practically naked.

Kevin nodded. "I got into that container as fast as I could - except it wasn't a container, it looked like a huge, fancy gold hotel room. In a _shipping container_. It reminded me of one of those sustainable eco-housing projects, except it doesn't make sense since the _inside_ was _bigger than the outside_. Like the TARDIS, except classier. And it didn't have that weird vacuum sound-"

That stirred a memory. "Did it have a plate of your favourite food on the table?" Dean asked. "Like, absolutely the best food you ever had in your life?"

"Actually, yeah," Kevin answered, absently bending the can in his hands, "tasted just like my mom's _paella_. Do you know where she is?"

Dean and Sam exchanged glances, then promptly avoided looking at each other.

"Honestly, Kevin," Sam said, "we think Crowley scooped her up when he cleared the building. Dean and I had to scram out of there pretty fast, so we're not sure, but um... it's our best guess."

"Yeah," Kevin nodded resignedly. "I figured."

The short, awkward silence that followed was cut by Chuck. "So, uh, what happened next? Before you and Cas got here, I mean."

"Not much," Kevin continued, "I holed up in that room for I don't know how long. I was so bored; there's nothing to do in there besides eat the same food over and over. Eventually Castiel showed up, told me that we were going back to Earth, told me to tell you guys not to contact him except for in an emergency, then left me here."

"Dean, was that-?"

"Yeah, heaven," Dean answered Chuck. "Maybe even the same room I was kept in, years ago."

"Did he say where he was going?" Sam asked Kevin. "Was he okay?"

Kevin frowned, turning the crumpled can over and over in his hands. "I don't know. He had red and black stains on him. He didn't look so hot. But everything happened so fast, after. He just wanted me to pass on that message and then we were out of there in a flash and in Chuck's the next, and he left right away."

Sam frowned, his forehead creased into its customary wave pattern. Chuck had sometimes written that Sam's forehead could be his personal billboard if Sam would learn to spell anything else besides 'A' on it. "Why would Cas leave a defenceless kid with Chuck? I mean - no offense Chuck, you're not exactly-"

"Armed and dangerous? Batman? All of the above? Yeah, I hear you," Chuck agreed. "Which is why it was really great to see you guys and catch up - wow, can you believe a whole twenty-five minutes flew by? Well, don't wanna keep you tied up, sure you're on a very important hunt right now, so thanks for stopping by-"

"Whoa, Chuck, what's the rush?" Dean asked as he pointedly ignored Chuck's shooing motions. "Are you saying that you don't have a guardian Superman anymore? Cuz that's gotta be the only reason Cas stuck Kevin here with a squirrely hermit like you. Y'know, a two-prophets-one-archangel kind of deal, but without a tub. Or the poop."

"Eurgh, could you please stop talking?" Kevin begged. "I think I've got PTSD from watching that."

"Yeah, try living with him," Sam muttered with a wince. "He ambushed me with that video."

"The point is, I'm not sure if I have a guardian angel anymore," Chuck said, anxiously running his hands through his wild curls. "I haven't been _seeing_ as much as I used to. It's more like flashes - but they're still focused on you guys. I haven't been able to write as much, which, truth be told, means that I'm sort of really a lot behind on bills and things... but when I do get visions, I crank out the pages. No peep from the holy strobe light. So, y'know, I'm probably not super useful right now which is why you guys should probably find somewhere else to go..."

Sam snorted, not budging an inch. "What's your deal? You're more... twitchy than usual."

Chuck threw his hands up in exasperation. "You're all freaking huge, gallumphing magnets for apocalypse-level trouble! Literally! It's bad enough that I'm a prophet, but keeping another prophet here is tantamount to storing gunpowder near open flames! So I would appreciate it if you guys moved along because as sad as my life is, I like to live on a daily basis!"

Dean shot Sam a look, and Sam immediately knew he wouldn't like whatever Dean would say next. "Too bad, Chuck, you're all we got as a safeguard and we can't drag a kid along with us. How about we divvy the duties? Sam, you can point whatever we got in the trunk at Chuck and see if the lightshow starts - I mean, don't actually kill him, as loud and annoying as he is right now, just try to kill him enough so that the angel starts to head over from the outfield. And I'm gonna try to call Cas."

Dean ducked out of the door before the rest of them could dispute his fair directions. He had faith in Sam - he wouldn't die. And wouldn't actually kill Chuck. His plan was great.

* * *

Two hours later and Dean was back and holed up in the guest bedroom. It smelled a bit like the Chinese apothecary where he'd picked up some of the spices along with a faint, musty undertone of old gym socks. It had been a pain in the ass to clear enough floor space among the odds and ends Chuck had amassed over the years into the small room, but it was worth it to lay out the spell.

The Enochian sigils were scrawled in chalk around an urn full of dried herbs and spices. He had had to drive to the next town to find a Chinatown, along with a few hippy healthfood stores that carried the spell ingredients. In the end, it'd be worth it if it could really summon Cas from wherever he had shot off to.

He lit the four tea light candles and dropped a lit match into the urn. "Cas? Castiel...?" he whispered uncertainly.

Flames plumed up from the urn, sparks and glass showered down as the ceiling light burst. The room plunged into darkness as streetlights outside blacked out.

Dean blinked, surprised at the speed of the signs. He had expected to be ignored again. Like all his calls and prayers had been for the past two days, ever since he'd woken up in that sterile laboratory room he'd flung every spare thought he had into unanswered prayers. Sure, they weren't the most sacred, but they were all one hundred percent heartfelt. He was pretty sure that it was the thought that counted, right? Even if some of them started with ' _HEY ASSHOLE_ '.

Tension and anticipation thrummed through Dean. He bounced on the balls of his feet, eagerly glancing around the dim room, expecting to see the overly-literal angel of the Lord suddenly appear with a rustle of wings and maybe a faint glow if he was pissed since he had warned them not to call (he can suck it, Dean was done embodying a clenched fist). Cas's last words to him in Sucro Corp rang in his head and Dean could hear the apology in his goodbye.

Despite the betrayal and all the frustrations, Cas had redeemed himself long before their talk in the cabin in the woods. Secretly, Dean had never and could never turn his back on him. Cas was one of the two people Dean orbited around in his tiny and ever-shrinking solar system - not quite a friend, but something like family. He never peered too close at that elusive label because Cas _should_ be family after everything he had sacrificed for him and Sam; but he never saw him through a brotherly lens.

He pushed those thoughts back down as the darkness in the room deepened and the scars on his shoulders started to tingle. The static smell of ozone permeated the room and Dean had a split second to savor it before white light seared into his eyes.

Dry heat scorched his skin like a flash fire and an instant later Dean was blindly knocked back, sailing into the hard wall. Pain lanced up his back as he hit the doorknob and he fell, slapping onto the floor as his ears filled with a reverberating roar. He could feel the adrenaline jangling through his nerves and his pulse drumming in his head as he scrambled for purchase on the ground, tasting panic and feeling like a blind cockroach floundering in the middle of nuclear ground zero.

His vision fizzed back in patches, just in time to see a tall figure wrapped in writhing arcs of lightning hurtle down to him. His lungs flattened as the figure straddled his waist, a large hand pinning him down at the sternum. In a flash, Dean could see his face in high-definition: Cas. Cas with wild, electric blue eyes, the wrath of heaven blazing on his face, lightning arcing out from his back and rippling through his pitch-black hair and down the arm holding an angel sword, coiled to plunge right through his feeble human rib cage.

He didn't care about any of that. All thoughts of shouting for help and safety concerns were suspended in that moment. All Dean could do was stare up at the angel and fucking marvel at how alive and awe-inspiring and almost _beautiful_ Cas was; that he was imprinting his hot hand into Dean's chest and he was _real_.

And he didn't have the time or the thought to reflexively hide anything from himself any longer. Cas's blazing entrance had blown the lid off. He locked his eyes to Cas's brightly shining eyes, peripherally noting that the razor-sharp point of the angel sword was cutting through the air to his chest and felt everything clicking into their right places.

Of course he was never a friend or a family member. Cas had always been different.


End file.
